Find out more about the cast of our upcoming musical production.

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical will open at the Rolleston College auditorium at 7pm on Wednesday 14 May, with further performances at 7pm on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 May.

Buy your tickets online here.

Maddie Winfield has been an active member of the theatre community since age 6, performing in productions such as Shrek Jr, and The Lion King Jr with Kirwee Players, Once On This Island with Ovation Theatre, multiple school performances, and most recently A Midsummer Night's Dream with Hwyl Theatre. A dedicated student of Greenstone Academy for four years, Maddie specializes in both singing and acting. She is thrilled to be taking part in this amazing musical—in the role of Grover—and looks forward to contributing her talents to the stage.

Emily Millar will star in the role of Annabeth.

Emily has been involved in the arts since she was a little girl. She danced in her first show, The Nutcracker, when she was three years old at the Selwyn School of Dance. Emily started taking an interest in theatre in 2019 when she played Silvermist in Peter Pan Jr at Centerstage Rolleston. She has also played Nala in Lemonwood Grove's Lion King Jr.

More recently, Emily was cast in Newsies at Centerstage Rolleston, and of course, we can't forget her role as Frenchy in Grease at Rolleston College. Emily’s passion for dance rose with her involvement in ShowQuest; which saw Rolleston College place second in their very first year they competed.

Emily spends her time teaching and dancing at Aurora Dance Studio in ballet and contemporary. Emily is excited to showcase what she has to offer in the role of Annabeth this year. She hopes you enjoy the show and all the hard work everyone has poured into it.

Xanthe Abrams

Xanthe plays Luke.

Xanthe attends level 7 drama classes outside of school with PLAY Drama Workshops, and has been with them since 2022. He won the award for outstanding contribution in 2024 for helping out backstage making props and taking understudy roles. Xanthe worked as crew and made props for ‘A Musical?!’, worked as crew for PLAY at theatrefest 2024, played ‘The Hippie’ in ‘Lost World Safari’, ‘Professor Detective Huh’ in ‘Professor Huh’, and will play ‘Brian the All Powerful’ in ‘The Boy in the Book’ later this year.

Percy Jackson himself: Alexander Stenhouse

Alex has previously contributed to Rolleston College’s production of The Wizard of Oz in 2023 as the drummer in the production band. His last acting role was Eugene Florczyk in Rolleston College’s production of Grease in 2024. Alex is also a multi-instrumentalist, playing drums and guitar, as well as singing. He has performed different instruments in different school based events, including Night of the Arts with Lincoln High School, the Rolleston College X-Factor, and is the drummer for the 2025 Rolleston College Jazz Band.

He is enthusiastic and excited about performing the title character in The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical!

Isabel Hawes plays Clarisse

Isabel (Izzy) began her involvement with musical theatre in 2020 when she took part in the Lion King Jr with Kirwee Players. Since then, she has progressed and taken part in many shows since then such as The Little Mermaid Jr (Court Theatre), Newsies Jr (Centrestage Rolleston), High School Musical Jr (Centrestage Rolleston), Grease (Rolleston College), Footloose (Kirwee Players), Aladdin Jr (Kirwee Players), Fame Jr (Kirwee Players), Wizard of Oz (Rolleston College), Beauty and the Beast Jr (Rolleston College) and is currently in rehearsal for Spongebob the Musical at the Court Theatre.

She takes ballet, jazz, contemporary and musical theatre lessons at Aurora Dance Studio where she is also a dance instructor, and she takes singing lessons at Elite Singing Studios. Izzy has recently received an APDA top tier award in her musical theatre dance exam meaning she was in the top 5% of dancers internationally for her grade. This year in the April school holidays, Izzy is venturing to the United States to take workshops with top choreographers and perform at Disneyworld Orlando.

She has loved working both behind the scenes as choreographer and onstage as Clarisse for this show, and is excited to bring this to audiences!

Stay tuned for more cast member bios coming soon.